


Bend Around The Blades

by lantadyme, orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Illustrated, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantadyme/pseuds/lantadyme, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of her friends, it's up to Jane to play through the loopholes and try to win back control of the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bend Around The Blades

TT: How much longer?   
TG: fuck can u get off my back about that crap  
TG: its not like bein the void player has rlly anything at all 2 do with telling time out here  
TG: how about you do some freaky heart shit instead  
TG: spooky pink feel the beat of her heart and tell where she is right now or w/e  
GT: Wait can he do that?   
TG: no im busting his balls jake hes frontin  
TT: I can't do that.   
GT: Fucking christmas that would be an absolutely amazing power to have!   
TT: It'd be damn better than your bullshit brain splinter clones out here in the dream bubbles.  
TT: If you spawn a clone of her one more time I'm going to beat the shit out of you, and don't think I won't just because you're cute.   
GT: Oh sure id love to see you get all blue in the face again about something I CANNOT ACTUALLY CONTROL!!  
GT: WHEN I WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE THEY JUST APPEAR!!!!  
GT: Its not something i have much of a daisyfucking choice in.   
TT: If you tried a little harder I bet you could do it.   
GT: You are a grade a asshole sir and i am not afraid to admit it!   
TG: are you really fighting  
TG: lolololol  
TG: okay fuckin stop that  
GT: Ow!!   
TT: Shit!   
TG: IM SRS STOP IT  
GT: ...   
TT: Okay.  
TT: Sorry.   
GT: Well color me friggin flabbergasted he actually apologized!!  
GT: I believe i may be presently overtaken by a case of the vapors in the face of this rare fucking surprise!   
TG: shut up jake  
TT: Holy shit, you punch really hard. My nose won't stop bleeding.   
GT: Welcome to the gun show.   
TG: omg stop it you are both equally shitty asshats ok  
TG: we rlly do not need to measure whos hat is the tallest here  
TT: God.  
TT: This wouldn't be happening if Jane was here.   
TG: :(   
GT: Dont say that. Shes better off alive.   
TT: That's not how I meant it and you know it.  
TT: How are we supposed to help her out without being able to talk to her?  
TT: She's the only one with power still in play and I don't even know what's going on in the game anymore.  
TT: I'm not used to sitting here like a useless fucking tool and  
GT: You have to trust her mate. Shell come through.   
TG: he says to the control freak for the millionth fuckin time  
TT: Shut up.  
TT: I said I was sorry, okay.   
TG: i know  
TG: im worried about her too dirk  
TG: so much  
TG: god i hate all of this  
GT: Itll be all right roxy.  
GT: We just have to wait a little longer. 

  


\------

A Prospit dreamer is never supposed to come this close to the darkness. Jane's heart beats loud and high in her throat, breath coming in gulps even though there's nothing but void in her lungs this far into the Veil. The meteor field lays in a scattered ring behind her, Derse a pretty purple smear far across the system in its orbit. She's as far from the evil plots of the Batterwitch and her levelheaded Dignitary as possible, coasting on fumes of adrenaline and fear and scared desperation.

This is not a path to walk without trepidation. This plan is her only hope.

There are demons out there. Demons with black curling tentacles and a song that Jane can just hear through the silence. The song feels like dread and condemnation funneled down through all of eternity into her inner ear. For a moment she hovers there with her hands clasped in the tattered hem of her skirt, Jake's green overshirt falling over her scraped knuckles and Roxy's scarf tucked close to her neck, paranoid gooseflesh slowly creeping over her body.

Even from here she can see hints of the horrorterrors, feel them like the air is curdling around her, dread licking down the back of her throat. She's about to step into their territory, cast herself out into the insanity of the Void and all the twisting and turning of spacetime she's bound to find out there. There is no possibility that she won't get lost. She has no mind for it, no talent for understanding it. She's not gifted with Space or Time or Void. She's the damn Life player. All she seems to be good at is not dying in this godforsaken game.

Time to change that.

Two things could happen out there as she gets uncontrollably lost in the black. She could bump into a horrorterror, which is the thing she dreads more than anything in the world and is simultaneously exactly why she is here. Or she could splash down into one of the dream bubbles she’s heard about and hope against all hope that maybe, finally, after three long painful weeks of separation, she might see her dead friends again.

Hands balled into angry fists, Jane glares into the darkness and steels herself against all her thousand doubts. She is so good at doubting, has been doubting herself for weeks, doubting every move and every choice because even if she does everything in her power to win this game out of spite, she still has no certainty that she will get her friends back alive. (But there's _this chance_ , and for this chance she's willing to gamble her life for theirs, no hesitation.)

One hand strays for the hundredth time to the knot at her throat, Cal's hands tied in a square knot against her pulse, her lynchpin grinning into the nape of her neck. And then she dives into the depth of the Void, pressing onward as the curves and loops of spacetime peel back around her, shredding slowly as she falls through the looking glass

  


\------

GG: Did either of you find him yet??  
GG: It's been nearly an hour so far and no response. I'm so worried.    
GT: I am looking as quickly as my damn shoes can carry me jane.    
TG: i  
TG: hes heer  
TG: i gothim  
TG: oh god   
GG: Is he okay????  
GG: Oh heavens, don't scare us like this!    
GT: Roxy?    
TG: hes dead  
TG: oh god hes sodead  
TG: were talking fuckin decapitated and  
TG: o fusk i dont want 2 talk about ths omg omg  
TG: omg   
GG: Roxy. D:    
TG: omfg  
TG: jaek where r u i cant  
TG: do this rite now  
TG: wich of u are closest   
GT: Roxy where are you? Can you send me coordinates?    
TG: sent   
GT: Christ on a cracker im coming okay. Just hold on.    
GG: Roxy, I  
GG: Breathe, Ro-Lal, okay? Just breathe.  
GG: He has two lives.  
GG: We can still find the other one.    
TG: no ur not listening 2 me janey  
TG: both of him aare here  
TG: theyre  
TG: hesdead guys i dnt  
TG: cant looka t ths omfg   
GT: Hes   
GG: No!!!!  
GG: No, he can't be!!! 

NO!!!!!!

GT: Jane wait!!!!    
TG: jane dont go!    
GT: I think that was really her finally!    
TT: It was her.    
TG: fuck and we scared her off   
TT: Jesus christ, I don't blame her. What a memory.  
TT: Sorry you had to go through that, guys.  
TT: Sorry, Rox.    
GT: Wasnt your fault bro. 

She pops the dream like a bubble of soap. It explodes outward in a rush of color and a foul petrochemical stink in the back of her throat, and Jane tumbles and tumbles through the void of nothingness, falling forever through a scream.

Memories. That's what replays out here. She's been falling through memories for the past hour (or maybe it's been days; she cannot tell time out in this directionless confusion). Each dream gets worse as she relives it. Memories of the game, of death, of sadness and destruction and Jane knows Calliope told her that sometimes there were nice things or new things that were to be found out here, but Jane's never found them. Never. It's just this horror forever.

She'd come out here hoping to run into her friends, but not like this. Not if she has no control over whether she enters a bubble or not, the black of the void so all-consuming that she forgets whether she's awake or dreaming until the horrific déjà vu strikes. Not if she has to listen to Roxy and Jake break again over Dirk's death, relive that vision of him strung up and displayed, run through on twin pikes by the Dignitary in a sick twist of revenge. She doesn't need this.

Her hands tighten on the knot at her throat, Jake's shirt clutched around her. She's shaking all over, terrified and desperate. She has no idea where she's going, no idea if she will ever find what she came out here to look for. Even less idea if this harebrained plan will work. But the sooner she bumps into a Dark God, the sooner she can escape from this madness. She heads in deeper, her mind spinning with the confusion of this alien world. (Roxy's scarf unraveling slowly forever, stretched back as her only link to reality.)

\------

TG: theres things out in the void janey  
TG: things u rlly dont want to run into  
TG: like  
TG: so bad u cant imagine and they ignore me but thats because im their homie w/ my void skillz  
TG: anyone else would get ravaged   
GG: And Dirk is stuck out there.    
GT: In the dream bubbles!  
GT: There is a huge friggin difference between the void and the bubbles let me tell you.  
GT: At least there are people there because in the void theres only...  
GT: Horrors.    
TG: yeah so dont get any bullshit ideas about goin out there  
TG: u can trust us okay   
GG: Ugh! Yes, I am perfectly trusting!  
GG: But the two of you have been sleeping and looking for him out there, and no one has seen even the slightest sign of him!  
GG: There was that hint of a contingency plan on his computer about how to maybe fix death!  
GG: If you could extract it from his broken shades that would be one thing, but you can't so we have to find him out there.  
GG: Three people searching is better than two.    
TG: im srs janey that is not a good idea  
TG: just sit tight and watch our backs while we snooze  
TG: 4 real we dont need to b fuck deep in dream land when the miles show up again   
GT: Youre an irreplaceable cog in this machine jane or are you forgetting that all for the trees?    
GG: I know. I just wish I could help somehow more obvious.  
GG: I'm so terrible at patience. :(  
GG: I never thought I'd wish for death, but if one of my selves would kick the damn bucket and actually stay down, I could help you.    
GT: Resurrection is nothing to sneeze at jane.  
GT: Every time you die you just come back and kill everything involved honestly its fucking impressive!  
GT: Im a bit jealous as stupid as that is to say.    
TG: yeah its stupid alrite   
GG: Wait...    
GT: What?    
GG: Oh god, this is a memory again isn't it?  
GG: This is when that bastard carapace kills us all again!  
GG: He just comes in with his ring and his damn Red Miles and  
GG: Oh, I don't want to do this again!!  
GG: It was hard enough watching you die the first time! I don't want this!    
TG: jane wait   
GT: Please!    
GG: No!  
GG: I'm sorry!  
GG: I miss you, but I can't!  
GG: I don't want this!!    
TT: Jane!    
GG: Dirk??  
GG: How are you here???    
TT: Look, you don't have to relive it. It's us. You found us.  
TT: The memories deviate once you realize what they are.    
GG: I...    
TT: Shit, don't leave again, Jane. I can't take watching you disappear again.  
TT: Take my hand, okay?    
GG: I'm trying but it's  
GG: All falling  
GG: Apart!    
TG: concentrate on the memory  
TG: make the bubble solidify again u can do it janey   
GG: I'm trying but  
GG: Something's  
GG: Pulling me out! 

It breaks again. The memory shatters like falling, shimmering glass, Dirk's palm still warm against her fingertips for that split second before the three of them are sucked away. It was them! It was really them and her heart is pounding but something has her by the ankle, something that's colder than all the ice in the universe, something that's wet and sloppy, soaking into her sock and reeling her back through the void, Roxy's scarf still unraveling at a steady pace and stretching back to infinity.

  


Jane screams. She screams and screams, clawing at the void and kicking, suddenly furious because _those were her friends!_ She found them! Finally! It has been weeks and weeks since she saw Roxy and Jake that one last time before the three of them were torn asunder by the Red Miles. When she resurrected in the blue renewing Flames of Life with no way to revive them. It's been so long since she last spoke to Dirk, since she saw the line of orange text that she didn't know at the time would be his final words. It's been forever since she talked to anyone at all other than desperately messaging Calliope's spotty inbox, hoping aimlessly for some kind of insight to fix things and never hearing anything in return.

She can still hear their voices in her ears, that vision of their faces etched into the back of her mind. She almost wants to cry with joy to have found them again. But then this monster ruined _everything_ , and even though Jane feels the dread prickling up her back at the knowledge that she is in the grasp of a creature more powerful than she will ever know—feels the absolute horror and the deep sour fear that's rising in her throat slowly—a hot righteous fury bubbles up in her and steels her against surrender.

Horrorterrors. She looks back and it's more eyes than she can comprehend, more tentacles and gaping maws than she can comprehend, the angles and the curves of the thing stretched out in dimensions too much for her human brain to understand. Looking at it feels like insanity, painful and sick and awful all at once, and the tentacle reels her backwards through the void to dangle her by the ankle upside-down, a monster squinting at her with one huge yellow eye.

"Your timing is horrendous!" she yells, her voice trembling and terrified, but strong despite it. "You couldn't have come a little later? Or a little _earlier?_ I've been looking for one of you forever!" Jane feels her stomach turn over, her lungs and her abdomen vibrating with the terrible, terrible non-music that fills the air. It feels like it's taking her apart. It feels like brainwaves crossing frequencies and annihilating. But she's Made of Life, and she can heal anything—even death if she plays her cards right.

You wish to bargain with us, Maid? 

"Yes, I wish to bargain with you. There's no other reason to be out here alive and well with a genuine juju tied around my neck. You're attracted to hollow things, yes? And he's hollow and empty and dead. He got your attention?"

We felt the call. We came when Time willed. 

"I have a proposition for you."

The eye blinks, one slow, awful motion. It's as large as her father's car, and Jane watches the iris within shift through the entire spectrum before returning to the putrid yellow of before.

We will listen. 

She is trembling from head to toe. She swallows down hard on the sick feeling rising in her stomach, eyes scrunched closed for one terrifying moment as she wills herself to go through with the rest of the plan. To make a deal with this devil even though all the evidence she has that this will work are scraps of visions in the clouds of Prospit, dreams and hopes that she is balancing her very soul against. This monster has no reason to bargain with her. It could ruin her in a second. She clenches her hands white-knuckled in Jake's too-long sleeves and opens her eyes again, meeting its impossible gaze.

She slips Cal's arms slowly from around her neck, fingers shaking.

"The juju. You can have him. He's not exactly useful against Lord English as he is now, but I can make him useful to you. He just needs to be full of life, right?" Jane's mouth is dry with fear. "Here’s my bargain. Before she died, the Rogue of Void told me that you could reach into a player and change something about them. That you could rewrite a piece of their essence. I want you to write the Life out of me. Put it in him. Use him against your enemy. I don't care. I just want it out of me so I can go back to my quest bed and finally only have one self to juggle! So I can finally start playing this game again instead of never knowing what to do. I’m going to win this whole thing and get my friends back! But if you do this, you have to let me go afterward."

The horrorterror watches her, the awful thrumming melody of its thousand singing maws vibrating in the air. Jane can't believe how terrified she is. The icy wet of its tentacle is still wrapped around her ankle like a vice, so cold she can't feel her toes anymore. Its eye can see through her in a million ways, can see the aspects of her soul and can do with them as it wills. She is a fly in its hand and it can crush her if it wants, take what she offers and give her nothing in return.

She squeezes her eyes shut again, praying and praying that the vision she saw in Prospit's clouds matches what will happen in these next critical moments.

  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Maid of Life and Death (Her Every Breath a Blade)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/722144) by [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer)




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